Something will behave exactly as it is meant to.
Because this time…
This time she does not ignore responsibility. She does not lie in a warm room, distracted by touch and breath and pleasure, while something irreplaceable vanishes beyond her reach.
The pestle stops.
Silence settles around her like a held breath.
Rubi presses the powdered leaves between two stained fingers, examining their breakdown, their release, their surrender.
“Everything breaks down eventually,” she murmurs softly. “I just have to find how.”
Then she reaches for the threvenar sample.
The predictable black threvenar powder pools in the bottom of a glass bowl. So ordinary in its appearance. So unassuming in its dangers—in the way it has rewritten the realms.
Rubi drags parchment closer to her, quill and ink already blotted across the workbench. Her records. Records that make no sense.
Test Thirty-Five.She marks the words at the top of a fresh sheet of parchment.
Test thirty-five after thirty-four failed attempts to find a binder for the threvenar. To safely remove it from the bodies of the Dravari people. To restore memory to them.
This is not right.
For Rubi, threvenar is predictable.
It is temporary—a sedative for memories, until it passes through the system. Or, for heavy doses, ushered out by detoxifying herbs.
She’s used threvenar countless times before—warriors who’d seen too much death, mothers who’d lost babies, children who’d witnessed the Purge.
It doesn’t stay—itdilutesmemory. Softens it at the edges. Allows people to return to themselves without the sharp memories of horrors they’ve encountered.
Then, it’s removed. Drawn out by plants.
She’s pulled it out of the body, the blood, countless times before. Exact quantities vary from person to person, but she’s always been able to extract it.
Moonleaf. Bitterthorn. White marrow bark. River nettle. Salt reed extract. Lungwort.
They’ve always worked before.
Until now.
Now, they are marked as failures in her records. Repelled by the threvenar.
Despite the knot in her stomach, she composes herself. Sucking in a sharp breath, she takes the freshly ground ashmint powder and sprinkles it directly on the inert threvenar.
If the ashmint and threvenar did what they normally did, they’d bind. Attach to one another—inseparable molecules coming together as one.
Nothing happens.
The ashmint sits atop the threvenar, not binding. Not doing anything at all.
She waits.
One heartbeat.
Two.
